Gallery | Mats Gustafson’s Eye for Beauty, on Paper and in Print

A cool book for hot days: Mats Gustafson: Watercolors (August Editions, $65), a selection of work from 1989 to 2001 by the Swedish-born artist. The limited-edition publication, which is a new issue of an exhibition catalog from 2001, will be released on July 23, during the summer-long run of “Fashion, Figures, Faces: Mats Gustafson,” a new exhibition at the Millesgarden museum in Stockholm, on view through September 22. The show features 30 years’ worth of drawings and watercolors by Gustafson, who is probably best known for his elegantly understated illustrations of fashions by everyone from Christian Dior to Comme des Garcons. But Gustafson, who lives in Sag Harbor, New York and Stockholm, is just as eloquent when he depicts, say, a deer head, a nude torso or his elderly mother’s face, with an economy of line that is matched by a palpable warmth and richness of tone. Glenn O’Brien, in his 2001 essay for the original edition of the book, wrote something that seems even truer 12 years later: “Pure beauty is suspect. It makes people nervous.” But he calls Gustafson “a romantic,” and says that “as such he is fortunate that he does not have to hide this tendency and that he is actually able to make a living. But such is the power of beauty, especially, to paraphrase Mallarmé, in an age that has outlived beauty.”

Correction: July 23, 2013An earlier version of this article stated Gustafson's new book includes a selection of his art ranging from 1989 to 2011. The book only includes works ranging to 2001.